Drowning
by Shimmersea
Summary: CAPTAIN SWAN AU. When a mermaid suddenly finds herself with a pair of legs, she finds that there is a lot more to walking on land than she ever realized. The things she wants most often surprise her, and mostly have to do with the captain that saved her.
1. Chapter 1

**DROWNING**

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AUTHORS NOTE: It has been a very long time since I picked up my fanfiction pen. Hopefully a few of you remember me from the last captain swan fanfiction I wrote… and you aren't too mad at me that I never finished it… things have gone up and down for me and I am sort of in a love-hate relationship with this show, but captain swan will probably be my favorite ship for all time and I have had this idea sticking in my head for awhile and I want to get it down.

Please note that this will be an M rated fic sooner or later, mostly for intimate reasons. We aren't gonna do a 25 chapters without a kiss thing again. I don't know exactly how quickly I'll get chapters out, and this is probably my first and last authors note. I hope you all enjoy my fun with mermaid princesses and pirates.

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She wasn't like her sisters.

She can't remember the day she realized it, just that it must have been a long time ago. She has felt apart from them for so long, she can hardly remember a time she felt like she belonged. At times, she wondered if she ever had. Piece by piece, she'd shown herself to be too different.

What had been the first piece of the puzzle to fall? The most striking wrongness is likely the fact she cannot sing. Well, she can sing. Pretty notes and light tunes, rarely any words; that was not what a mermaid song was about. Still, she couldn't sing like her sisters, high and clear and bright. So beautiful it could draw men from their ships and into the water below. She didn't care to sing, not the way her sisters did, and she could not watch as men fell to their temptation and they devoured him. It was simply the way of mermaids and she would not, could not, participate. Her heart felt too heavy as she watched them fall, watched them struggle, the bubbles escaping their mouths and Crimson clouding the water. The picture in her head soured any note she tried to sing. She didn't sing, she wouldn't feed. She didn't belong.

It was more than that, though. Of course it was. Mermaids often traveled in schools, groups that kept them safer and made life easier. Surely at one point she had a circle to swim with, she just can't recall. She drifted through the waters on her own now. She ignored the normal tendency to stay in one world and one ocean, to claim a place to be her own and never leave it. She liked to move better, liked to see every new realm and shore, even from the depths of the water. She wondered what it would be like to walk on land, to be a part of the world of men. She wondered so often at times it distracted from everything else — not that there was a great deal more else to distract from.

Life was so empty, under the water. Her fellow mermaids seemed to care little. They talked about how beautiful their hair was, or the taste of the last man they'd enchanted, or the fish they had seen. She found it all dreadfully dull. She avoided empty conversation and lazy sunning on warm rocks, seeking endeavors that could excite her. Her favorite was to dig through the ships of men, fallen and rotten and broken under the weight of the sea. She would pick out the remnants of lives lost and marvel at them in her fingertips. What had they used these things for? Sharp bits of metal with prongs, or the odd things that opened wide to disintegrate in her fingers. Sometimes she found them before they were destroyed by water and they were stained by odd black lines. She puzzled over them, what they could possibly mean. It was so confusing and so difficult to guess how shore things could possibly be of use.

Some were easier to guess than others, of course. Shiny metal and vibrant stones were likely just important because they were pretty. Mermaids loved pretty things, and yet those were of the least interest. She occasionally would drag back a fistful for her sisters. Strands of gold and silver, heavy stones. They would delight and ahh, yet without fail the greedy things wanted hers more than the ones she could bring.

She had always worn it; a snarl of gold threads and green stones, tight around her throat. She could not get it off, she'd tried plenty of times. Her sisters had pulled so hard trying to wrench it from her once that she had succumbed to darkness for a little while, coming back hours later in a bleary daze. She hated it, she wanted nothing more than to pry it off. Sometimes she would pull on it herself so hard that her fingers bled and her eyes burned. It wouldn't budge, not for anything. It made her feel so heavy, and each day it felt tighter. Constricting around her throat like a sea serpent, and it never lessened. She could not escape it.

It was worst when she slept. All her dreams were of things closing about her throat. Rope, net, seaweed, tightening and tightening — sometimes hands, brutal and strong, pressing and stealing all the breath from her lungs. She would wake with her fingers curled in metal, her chest heavy and constricted as her heart pounded in panic. A horrible feeling, her throat trying to throw up water as if that would save her. Once a mermaid had spotted her and laughed at her as if it was a joke. Don't be silly. A mermaid cannot drown. At first she had ignored it, but eventually the thought crept up to her. How did she even know what drowning felt like?

She hated feeling so separate, so wrong. Every time she tried to bend to match the mermaids around her, she always found a way to mess up. She would say or do the wrong thing, and then they'd all know that she did not belong. The few times she managed to fight how out of place she felt, she eventually forced herself away. She could not tolerate it. If she could not feel like she belonged she would at least feel like herself. It was better to be alone than to feel wrong in her own skin.

It was not always so terrible, to be on her own. She grew accustomed to it. There was no one to tell her not to do something, and she supposed that if she had one of her sisters with her always surely someone would. Perhaps she did foolish things on occasion, yet since she managed to swim out of all of them she didn't worry about them too terribly. She had no one to worry about but herself and she did not worry much about herself, either. There was nothing holding her back when she wanted to go somewhere new, and she often did. There were so many places to see and go, all she had to do was swim there and a whole new world would be at her disposal.

It was a limited view of the world, certainly. Only what she could see from shore or sand, when she got especially brave. And she did often. She was just so curious about land, how different it was from the ocean. Sometimes she would watch the shore for months, watching the leaves change from green to red, from red to brown, from brown to falling. Then the oddest thing would happen, white drops from the sky, so small and delicate it was impossible to imagine them ever becoming anything. They fell in the ocean and disappeared, yet on land they fell and fell and stacked and stacked until the land was coated with it, white clouds formed over hills and mountains and trees, remarkable and beautiful. It made her so curious, why did these little drops of white behave that way? And why did they only come at certain times, when there were no leaves on the trees and when even animals seemed reluctant to wander?

Each and every world she watched was different. Some were full of people, some were mostly animals. Some had strange trees and plants and scenery as she stared at it from the water. So different and unusual, and she had to wonder why it was so. Some worlds had magic and some did not. It was hard to explain how she knew, she just felt it. It was drier, somehow, even if she rarely left the liquid embrace of the ocean. She went to worlds without magic just the same as ones with. They made her curious, too, even though she was not certain why.

She could not help but dream about what it might be like to be on shore. Without the weight around her throat, with the freedom to walk and roam and go wherever she wished, and not just where the water could lead. She wondered what it would be like to talk to the humans that wandered about on land. She wondered if she could belong on land, like she simply could not at sea. She watched and she wondered and she wished, yet there was nothing that could grant that. She could not walk on land, she was a mermaid and she knew that there was no changing that.

It made her a bit too ambitious. Foolish, really. How she would draw as close to shore as she could manage just to watch what happened. She would watch birds in the sky and trees in the wind but oh, she liked to watch humans best. She would bob in the waves and wonder at what they did or how they moved. Why did women pin fabric to string to fly in the breeze? Why did men sometimes walk with strength and certainty and sometimes fumble and stumble like they could not remember how to walk? She had so many questions, and no one to ask. She made up her own answers, without any way of knowing if she was right.

She was growing far too bold, in her bid to watch the movements on land. She had found a beautiful world with crystal clear waters of bright sapphire, with lovely sands that sifted like powder through her fingers. It was not a large world, she'd swam the entire island multiple times in a day, and that was simply all there was to it. It was beautiful, palm trees with heavy fronds and bright skies and sparkling stars. There was a cove, just so, tucked inwards toward the island with heavy rocks flattened by the pull of waves. It was incredibly foolish for a mermaid to pull herself onto a rock, especially on her lonesome. It was very hard to get off again and everyone knew that a mermaid could not move well on her own. Simply being distant from the water was never a very good plan. And yet every day she found herself slipping toward the cove, pulling herself up on a rock and watching the activities on the shore.

Mostly it was animals. Birds and monkeys and bugs, making their life on the island. Sometimes, though, she saw humans. Some very small humans, with scuffed knees and dirty faces and wild eyes. When they saw her they had cawed and laughed and pointed, called her little lagoon mermaids cove and she'd been terrified and thrilled all at once. Then one of the boys had wondered what mermaid tasted like, and she had wisely decided to slip away before they could decide to find out. The boys were cruel, she found, though she did not totally understand why. They would throw sharpened sticks at the animals on the island, chase each other and laugh when they inspired one of their rank to tears, and yell and throw their limbs wickedly at each other when they were angry. Worst of all was at night, when even under the embrace of the water she could hear them wail. She knew not what for, yet there was something so horribly haunting about the sound. She cried too, cried with the same sorrow, even if she did not understand it.

There were more than just the boys, though. There were long and lean people with skin the color of copper. They moved silently as birds through the air. She wondered if that was why they weaved feathers into their hair. They were not as cruel as the boys, and very much quieter. She had been watching the shore for hours, once, before she turned and noticed one of them watching her. She knew not how long for, and it had frightened her, until the girl had made no attempt to do anything, and slipped back into the jungle before too long.

Most fascinating of all, of course, were the men that lived on a ship instead of the land.

They were hardest to watch from her rock. They did not go to the island often, they stayed on their ship and it was dangerous for her to swim too close, for they always had nets dragging under their vessel. Still, occasionally they would go to shore, mostly to pick fruit from the trees and swagger strangely through the sand. They were all so different, some short and some tall, some old and some young, some comely and some grizzled. Hair of copper and raven and blonde and mud and all the shades in between. Her favorite of all was the one that wore clothes as dark as his hair, his skin warmed under the sun and his shirt a vibrant luxurious red. He looked strong and certain, and yet there was a bright spot of silver at his wrist. It took many days for her to realize that he was missing a hand and not simply holding a tool. He was the boss of the strange men aboard the ship, she could tell; he shouted and they all listened, answering yes cap'n as they did. She never got the chance to really watch them, because they never came to her lagoon… until one night.

It was not all of them, of course, yet her heart thrilled as she saw her favorite of them all move out onto the sand. He was dark as the night he moved in, she hadn't spotted him until he was the dark stain against the pearly white sand. He had a bottle in his hand, and he moved to sit in the splash of the tide, staring at the stars and not moving. She was hidden in the darkness, she could watch him without fear he'd know she was there. She felt as if her breath was caught in her throat, excited and uncertain in equal measure. She wondered what it would be like if she were on shore with him. Would he let her have sips from his bottle? Would he tell her what he was looking at in the vast dark sky above their heads? What would his voice sound like, close to her ear? What would his hand feel like, on her skin?

The night stretched on and on and suddenly he fell back in the sand. She could not shake from her hiding place, and yet a terror raged in her heart. Why had he fallen? Was he well? She had never been so worried about another before, not even her sisters, not even once. It troubled her so to see his dark form sunk in the sand, not moving, even as the tide sloshed higher and pulled him in a bit deeper. It was a slow realization that if he let it keep pulling him, if he did not sit up and move back, it'd drag him into the water. For a moment she wondered if he would float all the way to her, if she might be able to see him closer if she just waited long enough.

Then she remembered. If he were to be dragged into the water, he would surely drown. He was not a mermaid, he could not breathe under the water and even a little bit of it could kill him. She watched a few seconds more, waiting for him to wake to the water sliding underneath him, a soft lap that drew him toward the mouth of the ocean. He did not and she could no longer risk the idea of him being dragged under.

She slipped from her rock with a quiet splash. She'd gotten quite good at getting on and off, if only because the boys would throw rocks at her if they got close enough. She swam into shore, so quickly it practically felt like seconds before she was there in the shallows. She could see the dark leather of his boots in the water, still being pulled deeper with every splash of the tide. It was dangerous to pull herself through the water and through the shallows, onto the sand she had never been foolish enough to risk before. Sneaking up to his side and under his arm, crawling into the rough sand, rougher than she'd ever imagined it could be. It was always so silken under the water.

For her intentions of pulling him deeper in toward land, when she was close to him it was hard to remember. His breathing was slow and steady, making his chest rise and fall. There was hair on his chest, how very strange, dark and dusted like the hair decorating his jaw and chin. The metal of his wrist was shaped in a curve, it reminded her of the quirk of the moon when it was naught but a crescent in the sky. He smelled sour, in a way she did not find very pleasant, and every breath made it smell a bit worse. Enough to make her nose wrinkle. His eyes were pressed closed and she found him very winsome. She rarely thought such things, which was a reason her sisters grew bored of her quickly. She did not think much of the beauty of things. Yet this man was beautiful, in a way she had never really experienced before.

She sat up in the sand next to him, looking skeptically at the tide and back again. She needed to pull him at least a few lengths toward land, and honestly she had no idea how she could possibly do it. It was dangerous to be on land, terrifying to be so exposed, yet no matter how impossible the task seemed, she had to try. She would not let him drown.

She realized, quite suddenly, that it could be as easy as waking him. Awake he could move himself away from danger. Awake, he could be a danger. Her breath caught in her throat as she considered it, before carefully reaching across him for the bottle that was abandoned in sand. She hucked it away, a distant splash in the tide. And then she reached for the glint of metal, fussing until it twisted off in her hand. He could hurt her and hurt her terribly with it if he wanted to. She was determined not to give him the opportunity.

There was nothing else to do now but wake him. Perhaps she'd have been wise to move away. Wake him from a distance instead of practically pressed up against his side. In her defense she'd never done anything like it before. If she needed she'd just slip back into the water and away from him. He could not harm her too terribly without his wicked curve of metal, could he? She carefully reached out to place a hand on his chest, and his skin was so vibrantly warm and wonderful she exhaled a note of pleasure. She had never touched a person before, and she found, quite perilously, that she liked it.

"If you're going to eat me, you're truly taking your time." She gasped, shifting back and green eyes blowing wide. The man, Cap'n they called him, opened his eyes and they were so bright and so blue it was like she was swimming through the ocean once more. She had never spoken to a human before and thusly had little idea what to say, yet it seemed Cap'n did not have that problem. "Now, you've something of mine, and if you're not going to eat me, I'd really like it back."


	2. Chapter 2

It was horribly shocking, that he would wake so easily. She had been so sure he was asleep, heavily so. Why had he not reacted to the pull of the water? She shifted back, just a bit, but the reality was she could not move very far. Not on land, not when her tail was so cumbersome to moving. She was trapped quite close to him, her curiosity overruling her sense. Perhaps she had been a little too keen to swim to shore and be near him, and when the excuse presented itself she hadn't thought too much about taking it. Foolishly, considering the position she had found herself in.

"What's the matter? Don't know how to speak?" He started to sit up, leaning back on his elbows, bright crystal eyes sharp on her. So sharp she wasn't certain he had ever been asleep in the first place. Had he known she was there? Was he trying to tempt her to shore? No, that couldn't be - how would he know that she'd swim up to him? She was spending more time thinking than she was answering, she realized numbly. She held the twist of metal close to her skin as if it were her only lifeline.

"No," she answered numbly, hardly believing the reality of the moment. Speaking to a human; her sisters would be disgusted and alarmed if they had any idea. Mermaids did not speak to humans unless they were taunting them or deceiving them. Especially men. Especially the men that lived on ships, with their heavy nets and loud canons, responsible for killing as many of their number as the other way around.

"No, you don't know how to speak?" He pressed, and she felt her tongue flattening at the top of her mouth, expression twisting in confusion and then annoyance. Surely he knew the answer to that. If she didn't know how to speak, she wouldn't have been able to say no!

"No, I can speak," she corrected him, sharply, and the sharpness just made his dark features twist upwards in a smile. She felt as if he was making a joke of her, though she hardly could tell why, thanks to it not being a very funny joke more than likely. Yet she could not claim to hate the way his face looked with a smile curled into his features. It lightened his face, brightened his eyes.

"Oh, grand. I confess I was concerned." He said one thing, yet nothing about his tone nor posture seemed to indicate that he was very much so. She was bemused, watching him with contempt and confusion and curiosity all at once. He was so different from everything she had ever known. He almost seemed more alive than all the mermaids she'd ever spoken to, though she scarcely understood why. "Now, if you please..." He nods at her chest, the sharp wind of metal she was still clutching there. "I'm sure it'd rather remain there, I know I would, but I would like that back."

She considered for a moment why his metal device might want to stay where it was. She pulled it from the bare skin of her chest, as if there would be some sign as to why it enjoyed her company more. Of course, there wasn't any. In fact she was fairly certain that metal could not have feelings to begin with. She pressed it back against her skin once more, eyes honed with her determination.

"No," she told him intently, which made his eyebrows lift high, climbing towards the mussed line of his dark hair.

"Are we back to the _no, I can speak_ bit?" He asked her, and she realized suddenly that he was insinuating that she was not very clever. She was intently annoyed by the insinuation, though perhaps she was not making the best case for herself at the moment. She'd never spoken to a human before, it was impossible to do it seamkessly.

"No, you can't have it back." That earned a slight quirk at the corners of his mouth, and he opened it again, likely to say something else cruel. She spoke again to stall his tongue. "You talk too much." It was true, she felt as if she spent so much time trying to make sense of what he was saying, and he was already off to the next thing before she had wrapped her mind around the first sentence. That didn't mean she was stupid, no, it meant that she wasn't used to talking to humans. Especially ones with such quick tongues.

He looked at her with a hint of surprise stealing into his eyes. It was a long moment before he barked a sudden chuckle. "First you steal from me, and now you insult me? You're the oddest thief I ever saw, love."

Her heart flipped foolishly at the word. She knew what it meant, even mermaids were aware of love. It annoyed her how her heart reacted, because she knew without thinking very hard that this strange man did not love her. How callous of him, to use such a beautiful feeling in such a casual way. Make it just a word instead of a wonder.

"I didn't steal from you. I just didn't want you to use it on me." Now, admittedly, she was refusing to give it back, but that was really for the same reason that she had taken it from him in the first place.

"That's quite rich, since you're the mermaid and all." She must have looked confused, because he shrugged shoulders and added, "You know, the creatures with a reputation for eating pirates such as myself."

Well, she had to give him that. Mermaids _were_ known for eating men. And... well, she was not exactly sure what a pirate was. Perhaps that was a name for men that lived on ships. If that was the case, mermaids liked to eat them especially, so again he was not exactly wrong. "I wasn't going to eat you," she informed him archly, though he rolled his eyes as if he did not believe her. "You fell over, you were getting dragged out to sea, I was..." She stalled out and his expression changed, barely perceptible, like a tiny flash in harrowing darkness. She silenced herself before she could continue. He was silent for an abnormally long pace, considering how quickly he parried back everything he'd said before.

"You saved me from a nap and a very good bottle of rum, how kind." She did not know why she thought that he would be grateful. She suddenly did not know why she had done any of it. She was dragged too far to shore and sitting immediately next to a man that could certainly turn on her the second he had the chance. He thought she was dangerous, after all, why would he not? The panic must have grown in her eyes, impossible to miss, because a second later his voice was lower and warmer. Kinder. "If you promise not to eat me, I'll do the same." He lifted both arms as if proof he meant her no harm.

Her heart raced horribly in her chest. She should not have believed the promise because there was no good reason to keep it. It was thrilling and horrifying to be so near someone to dangerous. She should have tried to escape, but perhaps it was too late for that. It was more tempting than it ought have been, a human that offered her no harm. She wanted to believe he meant it, and as far as she could read in his posture and in his eyes, he did. There was so much she wanted to know of his world, perhaps he could tell her about it. That made her heart flutter in her chest, faster than she'd ever felt.

"I promise I won't put my mouth on you," she answered, even though there'd never been a risk of her eating him. He just didn't need to know that, was all. For some reason her answer just made him laugh, though not like the first. It was low and dark and crawled through her veins, burying there and warming her.

"Now don't go that far." Her eyes narrowed and her head tilted in confusion. He asked her to promise not to eat him and then a second later had not wanted her to? It made no sense. He leaned closer with the words, like there was some meaning there, yet whatever it was, she did not understand it. He looked confused and almost abashed at her lack of reaction, leaning back again. After a long pace of silence, he agreed, "Right. Good. No mouths on anyone. Grand. Now if I can just get my—"

She shifted back, only a few inches, because that was as far as she could reasonably shift without using her hands to guide her. She shook her head intently, still clasping the hook to her bare breasts. It was cold on her skin. "I'll give it back to you, on one condition."

Again, he looked surprised. Apparently he was not expecting a mermaid to want to barter with him. Perhaps he was simply not accustomed to someone telling him _no_ ; as far as she could tell, his men never did.

"And what condition is that?" Mermaids were not the only ones with more curiosity than was good for them. Apparently Cap'n was curious, too, about her, it was apparent on his face. Something about that made her blood run a little faster.

"I want you to tell me about this island. I have questions." They weren't simply just about this island, but that seemed like a good place to start. She could ask him about the boys, why they were so cruel. Why the sun stayed out longer than the moon. Why the people with tawny skin were so quiet and slipped across the island like shadows. She would like to know what it was called. She wanted to know everything.

Apparently that wasn't the answer he was expecting. "Why do you want to know of Neverland?" A smile tipped at her face, looking beyond his shoulder at the island he spoke of. _Neverland_. She was in Neverland. He shook his head, drawing her attention back to him. "It's not a place for smiles, darling. It's a wretched place, I don't know why you linger here when you have the freedom to swim away."

Her expression faltered, uncertainty dwelling in her gut. "Is that why the boys wail at night? Because they do not like it here?" She could admire its beauty; honestly, she did not much understand what was so horrible about it, though she was thrilled at the prospect of learning. Cap'n looked at her strangely, swallowing heavily. She did not know why it was such a strange question. Surely he had heard them cry, at night. It was such a horrible sound, it echoed across the whole island and lingered in the water, too. Such a sad, heartbreaking wail - one that did not cease until morning.

"They cry for the families they've lost," he answered her numbly, and her shoulders slopped downwards. She understood that feeling better than she would have expected. Perhaps because despite so many of her kind, she does not feel as if she has any family at all.

"Why are their families lost?" She pressed quietly, one question segueing into the next. Her mind was rife with them, more questions than she could possibly ask in one strand of night.

The laugh that escaped the man was mirthless, and his eyes shifted to the stars instead of her face as he answered. "Each orphan has a different story to tell, sweetheart. You'd have to ask them to know."

She frowned, because she did not particularly like that answer. Still, she supposed it was fair. She could hardly expect him to know the histories of anyone but himself. Still, "I won't ask them. They seem quite cruel."

The captain looked at her again, a glimmer of something sad and dark in his eyes that retreated as quickly as she'd seen it. "They are cruel. Stay away from them if you know what is good for you. Pan especially." Her hands shifted from by her heart to land in her lap. Her scales felt dry and honestly, she needed to shift back into the water. She'd needed to some time ago, yet she couldn't imagine going back to the water just yet.

"Which is Pan?" she asked, eyes shifting to the jungle as if she might be able to spot him in the trees.

"Practically the tallest. Tight features, blonde hair, big ears. When you look him in the eye you don't see anything at all." She swallowed, wondering what that meant, to not see something in someone's eyes. Perhaps that could be her next question. "He's got a set of pipes, on his hip. All the boys answer to him, he's what makes them cruel."

She was silent for a long moment, trying to think back through the boys she had seen. "I don't think I've seen him."

"That does not mean he hasn't seen you." Something about that made the blood in her veins feel a little colder. She has spent long enough watching the island to know that it was easy to be watched and not know it. She had taken advantage of that practically her entire life and suddenly she felt guilty for it. "Stay away from him if you know what is good for you."

Her mouth felt very dry, though she was not sure that was just because she'd been away from the water for too long. It took a long moment before she nodded, just barely. She'd stay away. Perhaps he was untrustworthy and steering her in the wrong direction on purpose, but he had spoken to her without hurting her for longer than she could have anticipated. It didn't seem impossible he could give her advice worth listening to.

She opened her mouth again, to ask another question, but the man beat her to the punch.

"What is your name?" She paused, and fell silent, surprised by the question. "Please don't tell me it is Bubbles. Or Fin. It's not Fin, is it?"

Finally she found her voice to correct him. "No. It isn't Fin. I don't really… have one." Sometimes mermaids gave each other nicknames, and he was right, they tended to be rather insipid. Bubbles or Foam or Shell. She clung to the idea he'd started. "What is _your_ name?"

He nodded, once again, to the device she was still holding to her chest. What had he called it…? Hook. His hook. "They call me Hook. Captain Hook." He was named after the thing he wore on his wrist? She honestly found that a bit strange, but who was she to tell him he had a bad name? "You don't have a name? Not even a moniker?"

She made a face. He really should have expected her next question, all things considered. "No, I don't. What is a moniker?"

He sighed, shrugging his shoulders and finally peeling up and sitting next to her properly. If she should have thought to be frightened, he wasn't. "Like Captain Hook. A name that isn't your name, but you go by it all the same." She frowned steeply at that.

"You told me your name was Captain Hook. I didn't ask for your moniker." Her voice was starting to rasp, talking too much was drying out her throat. He shook his head with a wry laugh, that somehow sounded stained with something else. It was not a very happy laugh at all.

"I'm as much Hook as I am Killian Jones, but if you insist, that's my name." Killian Jones. All his men called him Cap'n –- _Captain_ , she supposed, they just said it oddly –- yet his name was something else entirely. She found it very strange. "It seems very sad that even a mermaid doesn't have a name."

She considered that without comment for a moment. Was it sad to not have a name? She had never thought of it that way, though now she wondered what it was like to have one.

"Well, I don't," she decided after a breath, not knowing what else she could possibly say.

"Do you want one?" He inquired, eyes intent on her. It was baffling how sharp his gaze could be. Unnerving, really. She did not know if she did or not so instead she tried to shake him from the idea.

"I'm the one asking the questions," she reminded him sternly, but it didn't seem to shake his interest.

"Come now, I've asked a few and you didn't mind until now. Is that because you want one, mermaid? Well, if you want a name, think of one. Then you'll have one, simple as that." She did not think it was that simple at all. She had never picked a name for anything before, certainly not herself. What if she picked a bad one?

"No," she said, shaking her head. She didn't need a name, and he was distracting from what she wanted to talk about.

"What about… Emerald. Em. Emma…" She could not help the splash of a smile that hit her face. _Emma_. She had never heard it before, or at least, not that she could remember… Yet she quite liked that one. "It suits your necklace, don't you think?"

Her necklace. The smile stalled almost as quickly as it had appeared. She swallowed heavily, the sudden remembrance of what she hadn't thought about since she'd dragged herself onto shore. Usually the necklace confining her throat dominated her thoughts, and yet for once she'd forgotten all about it. Suddenly it seemed to feel all the tighter for her forgetting about it, even for a little while.

"Emma. You can call me Emma." She liked that, the sound of it. It seemed familiar, even though there was no way it could be. It felt good and if that was what a name was supposed to feel like, then she wanted that one.

He managed a hint of a smile, just barely, lifting at the corner of his mouth. She smiled back, hardly even realizing she was doing it; her face simply echoed his. "Emma, then," he said, and it made her smile dance up a little higher.

"Killian, then," she echoed back. If his name was not Hook, she didn't understand why he had offered it. A name seemed personal, and he was giving the meaning of his away when he let people call him anything else. That made the slight twist of his lips turn into something wider, too. He had a wonderful smile, and it struck her that she did not think she had ever seen him do it, not once, in all the time she'd watched him. He smirked and he grinned but seeing him smile now, she knew it was different from those. She realized in a rush how much she had enjoyed talking to him, even though perhaps it was far from wise.

It had been full dark when they started. There was some pretense of safety and cover in the darkness. There wasn't as the sun started to stretch across the distant water, lighting the cove and destroying the illusion of security. She –- _Emma_ , she tossed the word around in her head and tried to apply it to herself, and she liked how it felt, even to think it - needed to retreat to the water. She could feel every inch of herself drying in the air, only the tip of her tail still kissed by water, and just barely at that.

She carefully reached out her palm, his hook settled in the meat of it. She had held it captive long enough. It made her heart clench to think it, but their time together had always been doomed to come to an end. The sunrise seemed like a natural one. If she didn't know better, there was a slight glimmer of something in his eyes. The smile faded from his features, but his fingers dragged over her palm as he retrieved his hook and slid it into place. Her heart flipped for a moment, knowing that he could harm her easily if he wanted to, and she had little to no way to escape.

He did not try to harm her, though. Simply settled back into the sand.

"Out of questions, I take it." He smirked at her, and there was something charming about that twist of his lips, too, just… not in the same way as his smile. It felt… lacking in comparison, somehow.

"No, I don't think I could ever run out of questions." That was the truth, so many lingered in her thoughts that she wasn't sure that they would ever stop. Once she asked all the questions about Neverland, the people that lived there, the men on his ship, the animals on shore; well then she'd ask about other places and other things. She'd ask about him. She'd ask why he went by Hook instead of his name, when he felt names were so important. She'd ask what rum was. She'd ask why he had hair on his chin and she did not. She'd ask so many things, she wished she could just have the chance to get even half of them out of her head. Maybe then she'd be content. It was more likely she never would be. "I don't want anyone to see me on shore, and it's getting light." It was too dangerous to linger.

The captain nodded, shifting in the sand to stand. Suddenly he seemed so very far away from her, simply standing up. She regretted her decision, she wondered if she had kept asking if he would have kept answering. She wondered if it would be the last time she'd ever talk to him, and it seemed far too short now. She stared at the sand he abandoned and tried not to watch him, knowing sooner or later he'd walk back to his ship and that would be that.

"You need a hand?" She looked up at him, surprised. She barely comprehended what it meant, honestly.

"No, I have two," she told him, which was honestly more than he had. He barked out a laugh, loud and sudden, but she didn't feel as abashed as she had the first time.

"I meant into the water, Emma." He said her name so easily, easier than she could identify with it. Hearing him say it made her like the sound of it more. She glanced to the shore, practically the whole length of her tail away. She could lay flat on her stomach and push and scrabble at the sand until she was back in the water, eventually she'd get there, but after a long thought she gave up on pride and nodded. Even if he dragged her there, it'd be easier than dragging herself. A quiet part of her wanted him to be close again, though it was the opposite of what she should want.

He didn't drag her. He crouched low, an arm going around her back, brushing over blonde hair that was practically dry from being in the open air for so long. His hand then moved over the glimmering scales of her tail, golden and shining in the growing sunlight yet certainly dry to the touch as he reached underneath at the bend. And then she was weightless, hefted into his arms, and she wound hers around him in attempts to keep herself there, a gasp of surprise escaping as she clung tightly to his shoulders.

Her breasts pressed against the fabric of his shirt. It was rough on skin that had never had fabric against it before. His skin was so warm and his breath skated across her throat. It made her skin tingle in a way it never had before. She watched him, almost hypnotized by how close they were. He watched her too, his eyes deep and powerful, and it felt like all too much at once. She shifted her gaze to the jungle behind them, held onto him and refused to look him in the eye because it all felt so strangely. She had no right to ask any more questions and suddenly she had a hundred more.

His breath was short by the time he waded in to his waist. He dipped low and the embrace of salt water surrounded her again, and she breathed a little deeper for it. She hadn't realized quite how dry she'd been until suddenly she wasn't anymore. The water agitated as her tail worked through the waves, remembering itself and how it was meant to move after so long stationary.

"Be careful round here during the day," Killian told her, and Emma pulled her wet hair from her face and over one shoulder before she nodded. He started to slog back toward the beach and as he went, she stayed. She did not savor watching him walk away; she simply knew there was no benefit to following. She was where she was meant to be, as was he. "And I hear there are pirates here on occasion at night."

A question started to float up her throat unbidden, curiosity striking as quickly as it always did. _What pirates come here at night_ , she wanted to ask, before it sunk in slowly. He did, _he_ had come at night. Did that mean he might come again?

"Mermaids come here at night on occasion as well," she told him, a thrill running under her breastbone as he turned back to her with a smirk.

"I'll remember that, Emma," he promised, and she felt a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. She dove into the water and disappeared in a splash, rather than let him see it.


	3. Chapter 3

She was an odd little thing, his mermaid.

He knew little what to make of her. The more and more time he spent with her, the less like a creature of the sea she seemed to be. He had spent centuries living and plenty of those centuries dealing with mermaids. They were vicious, wicked, demented things. They delighted in calling men to their deaths and showed no remorse for any they managed to ensnare. They would pretend to be sweet and swooning for only long enough to sharpen their teeth on a man's bones. They used their songs to convince those weak of will to dive overboard, and they laughed at men as they drowned rather than saving them. They were seductive creatures aware of their beauty and more than willing to use it to their utmost advantage.

Emma was none of these things. She confessed to him idly the third night that she couldn't sing. He scoffed and said he wasn't buying that trick, all mermaids could. Then she'd sung him a soft wordless tune just to prove it, and while her voice was lovely, it didn't leave him compelled to follow her every whim. (She'd tried to get him to sing after, himself, but he hadn't had enough rum.) On the fifth meeting he had tried to flirt with her, something about her eyes or her beauty or her breasts, and she just stared at him with unimpressed verdant eyes until he changed the subject. It was honestly as if she had no idea what he meant and it was bizarre to consider. Every other mermaid he'd ever seen had known they were figures of temptation, and surely Emma was as beautiful as any of her sisters. Yet she never used her looks to taunt him (luckily, because he's not sure he would have resisted).

She could have been tricking him, granted, yet time after time that they met and she did not, he had to wonder; how long a con could one pretty mermaid play? And truly, what could she get out of prolonging her hunt - every time he left she risked the chance he may never return.

He had yet to not return, of course, but one day he would. When he was free of Neverland he surely could not bring a mermaid with him, no matter her charms. One day it would happen, yet she seemed to suspect it. There was something resigned in her as she watched him walk away, every morning. Knowing she could not follow. However that resignation was not enough that she did not find her way back to the hollow most nights. He'd never waited for her and found himself alone. She would come close to shore or he would swim out to their rock and it was rather unbelievable how fast the darkened hours would fly by. It never seemed long enough, the sun always rose too soon and she would slip back into water or he would slink away in sand.

Five meetings stretched to a dozen, perhaps more. They could not meet every night, for he could not make it to the lagoon so frequently. It was too dangerous, and during nights of horrible weather he needed to stay with his remaining men and his ailing ship. Neverland had not been kind to his jewel in the centuries she'd been trapped in it, despite her impressive resistance to damage thanks to the enchanted wood she was made of. Her sails were tatters sewn back together again and again, her hardware and fixings missing, broken, or wearing out. Much like the rest of his crew, the Jolly Roger showed signs of wear even in an ageless world; she could not make it forever any more than the rest of them could. He had to remain with her on the nights that were worst, for sake of fending off worse damage. As a captain he could not escape any moment he felt a flight of fancy. And yet whenever he made it to the quiet cove his mermaid was never far away.

She was a dangerous fixation and a part of him knew it. If Pan spotted her it would end horribly. There was something still quite innocent about her, unbroken and untampered, despite for the ache in her eyes and the fact she could hear the orphan wail that echoed from the island at night. Worse still she was a distraction from what he needed to focus on. He was no closer to escaping Neverland than he had the first day he stepped on her shores. He had his method of revenge, he had refined poison and every treasure he could lick from Neverland's shores. Nothing remained that could compel him and yet he was trapped, and Pan had yet to show any inkling of releasing him.

He told himself she was a distraction. Neverland had a tendency to wear at the mind, and the heart, even if it left the body untouched. She had nothing to do with the vengeance he desired so keenly, yet perhaps that was what was refreshing about her. She did not look at him and see Captain Hook, not even despite the tackle attached to his wrist. She saw Killian and called him as much, laid beside him in the cool night air and whispered him questions, some sensible and some fantastic, and he could never quite guess what would come out of her mouth next.

Sooner or later he'd bore of her, he supposed. The day would come and then he would stop finding her little cove and no doubt she would grow bored herself and move on. She had freedom he did not, she could swim away without a thought and never look back. He envied her for that, though as much as he wanted to take advantage of her ability, he couldn't see how. She was a useless endeavor, through and through, but at least she was good for keeping his mind quick and his nights entertaining.

"What's this?" She wondered, fingers running the metal of the necklace he always wore. Emma had both a reluctance to being close to him and at the same time, thoughtless consideration to personal space. She seemed surprised and uncertain whenever he drew near to her, yet she would touch his hair or his clothes or his things without a thought. As if it were perfectly acceptable and normal to run a thumb over a man's eyebrow if he quirked it a time too many.

"Same as yours, I gather." After all, she did wear that monstrosity of a necklace, all the time. He couldn't understand how she could swim with a choker so confining, yet he'd seen her go so clearly it did not slow her down much at all.

She rolled her lovely green eyes, catching his for a moment in a silent reprimand. _I'm serious_ , her eyes informed him tersely. He found her silent words even more amusing than her spoken ones. "I meant where did you get it. Why do you wear it? Is it heavy?"

She had grown very used to his accommodating nature a far as questions were concerned, and if he didn't stop her somewhere she could rattle off a whole list of them, more than he could even remember in order to properly answer.

"I won it off another pirate. Blackbeard. Wretched captain, that one. I wear it so everyone knows I bested him and to remind him what a fool he was to cross me. And no, not particularly." She brushed fingers over the skull shape, and he could see the questions formulating in her eyes. _What is it made of? Why is there the face of a tiny man? How is it made?_ And that was just the bloody necklace, no doubt she could start asking questions about Blackbeard and never stop. Instead of letting her start her spree, though, he returned the question in kind. Reaching out to gingerly run a finger over the top band of metal attached to her throat, making her breath catch under his fingers. "Why do you wear this, then?"

Fair was fair. She didn't have anything to hold captive any longer, so she really had no excuse to not answer a question of her own on occasion.

Her expression clouded dramatically, her tongue running out to wet her lower lip. She had insufferable habits when she was nervous; wetting her lip, clasping her hands between her breasts, sharp intakes of breath. She clearly had no understanding of what such behaviors could do to a man, but unfortunately he was quite wise to it.

"I don't know." He lifted his eyebrows in disbelief, but Emma was not much of a liar. It just didn't make sense how she couldn't know. If she didn't like it, why didn't she just take it off? "I always have and I always will. It doesn't come off, I've tried so many times."

Hook grumbled lowly at that. "That can't be true, there's got to be a clasp on it somewhere. Come here."

Her eyes widened, yet she bore no loud complaint, awkwardly shifting along the sand to sit perfectly next to him. The flip of her tail in the water landed thoughtlessly on his legs. He brushed his fingers over her shoulder to collect her hair before he hooked it over to the other side, leaving her bare back and neck facing him. Tantalizing, beautiful flesh, yet he bit back the instinct to taste the salt of her skin and focused on the necklace.

It was easy to assume that she had put on the necklace as a wee mermaid - were mermaids ever wee? - and grown too big for it, straining the clasp and making it difficult to remove. Perhaps she had even slipped it over her head at the time, and now it was simply too unwieldy to slip out of. He could fix that if he could break the clasp open.

Yet, no matter how he felt nor searched nor looked, there was no clasp at the back of her throat. It was an odd necklace, certainly, it looked like it was made of strings or threads of pure gold instead of a chain. They knotted together effortlessly and intrinsically and the detail was so immense it was hard to tell when one thread started and another ended. His rough fingers searched and searched yet for all his efforts, there was nothing to find.

"What are you doing?" Her voice seemed a little strange, compared to usual. Perhaps she had spent too long out of the water. She looked back at him with confusion apparent, and again, her tongue peaked at the lower cleft of her lip. Distracting creature, constantly, without a single idea she was doing it.

"Trying to find a clasp or closure, how this bloody thing got on you." It was a great idea, however, the truth was growing more and more apparent the more he looked. "Is this bloody thing enchanted?" He couldn't imagine how else a mermaid could be trapped with an ornate collar. Emma shrugged wearily at the inquiry, shoulders sloping downward in obvious disappointment, even though he couldn't see her face.

"I don't remember. All I know is that I have always worn it." She spoke with a detested quality he knew quite well, in reference to the hook he wore every day. He could never part with it and yet he hated it intently all the same. He did not want Emma to suffer the same, for no good reason at all. Perhaps that was why foolishness rushed out of him next.

"I don't know if it'll work, but I can try to break the metal with my hook." It was an incredibly stupid plan, likely boosted by too much rum in his system and an entirely too strong desire to please a mermaid he shouldn't care about. He expected her to refuse, or to shift away or to shake him off. It was a pretty enough necklace and couldn't have affected her life terribly either way. Why not just keep it?

Instead, her answer was practically instant and incredibly firm. "All right." He didn't answer immediately, rather shocked by her certainty. Emma glanced back at him with those verdant green eyes of hers and stared.

"Are you sure? It'll likely hurt." Getting his hook underneath the choker when there was no room between skin and metal, it'd leave her a little short of breath to say the least. And even then, there was no proof it'd work to begin with. Gold was far from the hardest of metals yet it wasn't something easily shorn, either. And the collar itself was plenty thick, the width of his thumb.

"I don't care. Do it." He could hardly imagine how badly the girl wanted rid of the thing to be so willing to endure pain for a simple _attempt_ to be rid of it. He had no reason to hesitate and yet he did all the same. He was capable of murdering men and leaving children without a father and yet he hesitated at the prospect of _possibly_ harming a mermaid. "Please, Killian," Emma whispered, eyes catching his as her use of his name caught his foolish black heart.

It was a horrid idea, to try and hook a necklace off her throat, and yet somehow all he found to say was, "Just shout if it hurts too much." As if making any noise was easy when one was being choked to death. Mermaids didn't need to breathe, yet it still seemed far from wise to suffocate one. Emma ignored the warning, turning back around and lifting her fingers under the metal at the front of her throat. It left even less room for him to slip his hook under yet he supposed it'd provide some barrier against the most fragile part of her neck.

She shivered as he pressed his palm to her skin, awkwardly wedging the metal up so his hook could sink underneath. It was lucky that his hook was incredibly slim at the tip, making it easier to catch under and slide through. There was no room left, he could already tell by the labor of Emma's breathing. "Emma," he started, and yet she shook her head, refusing to let him give up.

He frowned, teeth clenching and jaw tightening. Fine. If the idiot girl wanted him to try and choke her to death, then he'd bloody try.

It was hard telling if slower or faster would be better. He went with slower. Hard to say if that was right, because it meant he heard intimately as the air started to shorten. When it stopped all together. He held it no more than a second, before his better judgment forced him to stop. She caught her breath in a heaving bellow of lungs, yet the second she had her breath, "Killian, stop playing at it and try."

He was annoyed at the implication that attempting to protect her was _playing at_ removing her necklace. He was annoyed too that she knew he was not trying as hard as he could have, but there was very good reason for that. His jaw ached with how tight he'd ground his teeth together, but he started to pull with little warning. Pull and pull hard, even as her breath silenced. He'd give it ten seconds. If it didn't snap or bend, then he was through with this folly and the girl was stuck with her enchanted necklace, simple as that.

At two seconds it seemed nothing at all was happening. At four her shoulders slackened, but he ignored it. At six he pulled a little harder, even if it didn't seem to help in the slightest. At nine Emma started to fall back against him and he realized with a sudden panic what he'd done. At ten he yanked his hook horribly, trying to release it from the metal, and it … well, _shattered_. For lack of a better word.

Emerald stones flying and golden strands disintegrating, slithering down her golden skin and burying in sand. Killian thought little of the necklace, though, as Emma fell back against his chest. Body limp, a sharp purple line across her throat, and not a single hint of breath in her lungs.

He didn't stop to think about the fact whether mermaids _had_ lungs. He didn't have the sense for it. The panic that thundered in his chest was foreign for ignoring it for centuries and familiar in a way he detested. "Emma," he begged an unresponsive form, holding to his chest before he carefully placed her in the sand. He ran touches over her face and pressed his palm above her heart, but if it was beating he couldn't tell.

Trying to breathe life into her was the last option he had, even if he didn't know it'd work. He pressed his mouth to hers, hand awkwardly curled to clamp her nose shut as his hook tilted her chin up. He tried desperately to give her the oxygen he'd stolen from her, once, twice, a third time.

Nothing.

In the desperation of his fourth, suddenly he felt the sharp intake of air. He couldn't pull back fast enough, her body lifting in sudden racking coughs, remembering how to run oxygen through it again. He pressed his hand to her shoulder, trying to keep her still. It took a painfully long time for the coughs to abate, yet certainly not as long as she'd been airless to begin with. No, painfully long had been the seconds he had thought her dead.

"Gods above, Emma," he snapped, trying to sound angry instead of the reality. He could not be frightened by losing someone, not anymore. He could not feel regret for hurting someone, either, there were too many other regrets licking at his heels for that. His mermaid slumped back in the sand, a weary smile pulling at her face as she rubbed at her throat. The bruise there was growing more and more dark, screaming purple and angry bruising, yet Emma looked the happiest he had ever seen her.

She shifted onto her elbows, opening her mouth, yet for a long moment no sound came out. He thought she might have damaged her voice from the pressure of the metal and another, deeper curl of guilt found him. What if the girl could never talk again, because he'd been foolish enough to practically choke her to death?

"Killian," she whispered, and her voice was certainly ragged from the pressure on her throat, yet that was likely not what alarmed her so. It took him about that long to glance down and realize exactly how naked she was. She always was, of course, bare beautiful breasts constantly in the open, and very distracting. Only this time around there was a lot more naked body to look at. A scant waist and wide hips and round beautiful thighs and sweetly curved calves. Delicate feet with tiny, perfect nails.

Legs. His mermaid had legs.


	4. Chapter 4

It sent an inordinate thrill through her, to look down and see legs. Emma ignored the odd texture of sensitive skin in sand as she sat up, hands running over the newfound skin. It was soft and smooth and utterly strange under her touch, yet no matter how unbelievable they were real. She had legs, _legs_ , human legs. She had the freedom to leave the embrace of the ocean. The world that had been closed off to her spread open like a flower blooming in the sun. She lifted a leg with her hands, feeling the strange sensation of muscles working in ways she had never felt before. She rolled her ankle and twisted her knee and marveled at how it all felt.

She had always felt so wrong in her skin. Such an ill fit to her sisters. Now she knew why, now she understood. She did not belong with the mermaids; her place had never been among them. Somehow, she was a human, despite the fact everything she had ever known was the embrace of the ocean and a life under the weight of the sea. Chance and opportunity flooded at her feet, things she'd never imagined for herself. Her world had changed in an instant and she was so delighted she had not the sense to fear it.

Her lips burned in the oddest way — was it from the scruff of his beard when his mouth had pressed to hers? — her spare fingers pressed there, for a moment, before she turned to her uncertain savior. A part of her had been more than aware how foolish it was to trust a pirate with such a delicate task. How easily he could have harmed her. Still, he could have easily done the same any of the dozen times they'd met and talked. She trusted he wouldn't harm her. And he hadn't, he'd taken great strides to avoid it. Emma wasn't bothered by the ache of her throat or the strain to her fingers. _She was free_ , finally free from a weight she'd always known, presented with a chance at something better. How could she be angry at a mark on skin when he'd granted her so much?

Her instinct was sudden, based wholly on what she'd learned she enjoyed. She liked it when his arms were around her, when he guided her back into the water. She liked it when her body pressed against his chest, the way her heart thundered when his breath burned at her skin, the way the hair on her arms rose when his eyes caught hers. It didn't always happen, of course, especially if he met her out in the water instead of her dragging her way onto sand. Still she found she enjoyed it when he carried her weight in stead arms. She'd never instigated such a touch without reason before, yet in the moment it seemed right. She viced her arms around his shoulders and held on as tightly as she could. It was an embrace proper, their first without excuses and a tail in the way. He was stiff for a moment underneath her, before his arms moved around her too. A hand at the small of her back and the cold press of metal just below shoulder blade. His fingers pressed into her skin, _hard –_ it reminded her of a grip in sand, trying to hold on to something that would always sift away, no matter how hard one tried to keep it close.

"Thank you," she murmured into his shoulder, smile in her voice as evident as the one on her face. Truly, she was not sure she had ever felt more joy than she felt now. There were so many unanswered questions, a part of her was aware of that. At the moment the gift she'd been given was so strong she could not consider the shortcomings. Apparently, Killian did not share that problem.

Like he remembered himself, he pulled back suddenly. Awkwardly, too, as Emma did not show much inclination to let him go yet. It was only when he craned far enough back and his arms slacked around her that she begrudgingly granted him a few inches, and those inches were forced a bit wider when he twisted out of the reach of her arms. "Emma," she hated how he could say her name like a chastisement. He had so many ways of saying it, and Emma was certainly she could only say his the one way. "You could have died. You were free, and now—"

"I wasn't free," she rebuked harshly, pulling back despite the roar of her heart, the whispers of want to be close again. "I was confined to the water, trapped in a place I did not belong, with sisters that did not want me."

"And what are you now? Confined to an island, with boys that'll kill you if you're lucky and men that'll—" He grimaced, pale eyes turning to the water as his jaw knit painfully tight. She'd noticed that he did that often, his jaw could lock like a vice. She had been tempted to touch his face, once, to know what that kind of tightness felt like. So far she had not found the courage to try. She still could not. "Emma, I've told you of this place, of its dangers. Before you could escape it, and now you are just as trapped as the rest of us."

Truly, she hadn't considered that part in her blind glee. She'd thought of the freedom of her legs, to be on land – he was right, though, he'd told her he'd been in Neverland for hundreds of years for lack of a way to escape. She'd been a mermaid, capable of traversing the complicated snarls that connected the worlds. She could not swim that far or so long now. She could not leave the beautiful and dangerous island of Neverland, and all the things he'd told her about were things she now would have to face firsthand. In a matter of speaking, even hearing about them was not enough to really understand what she would need to face. All the same, she could not say she wore much regret.

"You don't know what it's like, to feel so wrong. To… to not be wanted." Her voice quavered with emotion that she had never shown him before, yet it crept up on her unbidden. Oh, she had cried to herself about the clawing feeling in her heart before, yet somehow she'd never put words to it. "It might be dangerous here, but I'm not sorry to be free of that fate. You helped me more than you know." She turned away from him, wondering how to get to her feet. What was it like to even walk? She wanted to know. "I'll find my way."

He looked at her incredulously, before shaking his dark head. She thought if his jaw was any tighter he might grind his teeth clear away. "Find your way naked as your nameday into poison and traps and death, will you? Well, I'm so relieved." She frowned at him. She always hated it when he spoke to her as if she was foolish. It was her first time on land but not her first time facing a world she did not know. She would be careful, she was not so wholly foolish as he seemed to believe. She did not get a chance to reply before his tone softened again. "You've never lived life on land and I trap you on an island of demons."

He was worried for her, she realized numbly. He would feel responsible if she met a cruel end, despite the fact she had asked him to release her and neither had known the consequences. "This is what I wanted. It still is." He could call it what he liked, she felt as trapped under the water as he had on the island. It had been a different kind of cage yet it had kept her contained and kept her unhappy. Whether he liked it or not, she had more freedom now than she had before the necklace had shattered around her shoulders. The wires and stones of it twinkled in the sand like tiny stars in the rising daylight.

"You don't know what you're doomed to well enough to know you want it," he corrected her darkly, scrubbing at his face with his palm. Emma found herself angry, that he would consider her so weak. Not knowing of the surface did not mean she knew nothing. Or that she could not learn. He did not get to decide for her that she did not want legs, when she had wanted them for so very long. "I can't just leave you here. I'll…" He trailed off, as if the plan was coming to him still as he spoke. "The fairy. I'll take you to her. She'll know what to do."

"There's a fairy here?" Emma said, slightly awed. Indeed, she did know what faeries were. She'd spoken to some in a few worlds. They were kind, if unhelpful. All had told her she could not walk the way her sisters did, on the day of Ursula's blessing. They'd vaguely told her she was _different._ Well now she supposed she knew why, though she wished they could have just told her straight.

"Former fairy. She's just a woman now." Emma wondered how one could go from being a fairy to not. For that matter she wondered how a fairy would know what to do, when in her experience their method of help was lacking at most. Still, it was something. Emma could not say she had a better idea at the moment. Whether she liked it or not, he knew more about Neverland and its intricacies than she did. "You'll be better off with her."

Her spine stiffened and her annoyance cracked like thunder. "I'm not an item to be handed away." He could not just decide for her that she was off to see a former fairy. She refused. She'd rather stay on the beach.

"Have you ever heard of learning to float before you swim?" He laughed, though it was not a very warm one. "I suppose you've not, would you? Emma, you need to learn the way of this place before you strike off on your own. Hate me for it all you like, I'll not throw you to the wolves."

"But you'll throw me to a fairy." She wanted to hit him. She'd only just had a taste of freedom, and he'd already gotten it in his head to take it away. He looked at her hopelessly, shaking his head. His thoughts seemed very far away, though Emma supposed that they always did.

"What would you have me do? Leave you here in the sand?" Emma thought darkly to herself that he'd had no problem leaving her here in the sand all the other nights, yet that was likely not the answer he was looking for. What _would_ she have him do? It was an odd question. She would not have him do anything; really, she had been more concerned with herself. If he was so concerned with her well being that he could not leave her alone, then why must he hand her off to a stranger?

"Yes, preferably," she agreed peevishly, though unsurprisingly he gave her a dry look that sufficed that he was not keen on that particular plan. "If you want to help me, then do it yourself. You do me no favor by taking me to a stranger or deciding things for me. It's my life and not yours."

He looked very keen to argue, she could see it in the twitch of his mouth. He wanted to be angry and he could tell it so clearly, yet … his mouth quirked upward, almost despite himself, it seemed.

"You sound too much like a pirate for your own good, at times." She could not tell if that was a compliment or not – considering Killian was a pirate himself, she supposed it must be one.

"Then I will fit in well on your ship," she said with a shrug, and that even earned a huff of a laugh.

"No, love, you'll not that, not in the slightest." She wasn't sure what he meant by that, yet there was that distant look in his eyes again. Whatever he was thinking about, it was not helping her case.

"Then leave me here." She did not have as much fear about finding her own way as Killian seemed to. He grimaced and was silent for a long time. Long enough that she began to wonder if he'd conceded. Finally, he got to his feet, and she imagined it was to leave her, just as she'd told him to. She found a hollow bite of disappointment niggling at her chest, she told herself it was for the best. He stood over her and she stared back at him, stubbornly. He would not hand her off to a fairy, she refused.

Finally, he began shrugging out of his jacket, and she found her eyes widening a little in her surprise. She'd seen him take it off before, of course, it was simply that it didn't make sense. After that came his shirt, and that was certainly a first. She stared, her mouth falling open a little as she watched, eyed the taut shape of muscle in his chest and arms and shoulders as he moved, the dark dusting of hair that swept over his chest and lower and lower still – her eyes caught there, the dusting of hair that seemed to be a line downward. How far did it go?

She did not get a chance to ask. And she very well might have. Instead he tossed the fabric over her gaping head, and it took her a moment to pick it up.

"I don't want your shirt," she told him, not unkindly, but certainly with a bit of confusion. It was not often she saw men remove their clothes, it was a very strange gesture.

"I'm not taking you to a ship full of men that have not had a woman in decades stark naked, Emma." Naked, there that was again. She fumbled with the fabric, having never put a shirt on before. She'd seen him in it enough to know how it went, her arms through the narrower parts and her head went by the collar. It hung off her body and it waved open past her breasts. She did not know what the point was, yet when she looked back at him there was a familiar color of something strange in his eyes. Something that tingled in her gut, and now it caused an odd sensation between her legs. What an utterly bizarre reaction to a simple look, she thought. "You'll need to do up the buttons," Hook informed her, tone calculated, like he was hiding something.

"Why?" Emma wondered, looking back toward the shirt. She was wearing it exactly as he did, she'd not loosened any buttons to slip it over her head, she hadn't needed to. Why was such a lazy question, he'd told her he wouldn't answer any more of them. It seemed now was no exception, so she lifted her hands to fumble with the foreign devices. She did not know how buttons worked, yet it seemed a simple enough process. Her fingers were clumsy, but not incapable. Even with all the buttons closed, the fabric draped loosely off her body, tempting to tumble off one shoulder; her breasts, though, were securely covered by black fabric. She found the shirt had a warm and familiar smell, even if she could not say she expressly enjoyed the feeling of a fabric cage.

When she was done and looked up again, Killian held out a palm in her direction. Her heart flipped with anticipation of what it meant. Her first time standing. Finally she would know what it was like to be on her feet, to walk as she had always meant to.

It was easier said than done.

She took his hand and he pulled, and he was strong enough that he could have dragged her all the way. Still, she did not know how to push her feet into the sand properly, and he ended up just tugging her over. It was an effort to say the least to get her to her feat, ultimately with his arm notched around him – thankfully her head was not on how close he was, with so much skin bare – and when she did make it to her feet, it was not the joy she'd been anticipating.

It hurt, it hurt so badly it made her gasp, and the longer she stood the worse it felt. "It hurts," she gasped to Killian quietly, weighing towards him hopelessly. She was not certain she would keep her feet if he let her go. She looked at him hopefully, like he might have an answer for the pain.

"Perhaps that's the price of the magic." That was not an answer wanted to hear, and a pitiful noise clawed from her throat. She'd wanted legs so badly, yet imagining this sort of pain every time she walked was an intimidating prospect. "Might do that they're weak from never being used. They'll get stronger with time." That was slightly more promising, and Emma nodded, tears stinging at her eyes. She perched on his arm, hands knotted into his skin, as he ducked to collect his coat, awkwardly helping her into the heavy leather as well.

"I don't like this," she told him miserably. How could he wear that horrid thing all the time? It felt like having the weight of an anchor around her shoulders.

"Sorry to hear it, I must say it looks well on you." Emma's tongue pressed to the top of her mouth and she found she had nothing to say in return. She was pleased at the idea, even though she had never cared much for the vanity of her sisters before. "Come on. Try to walk. One foot in front of the other."

He made it sound so easy. One foot in front of the other, instead of one wavering and wobbling step, and the needles and pangs of pain. Without his solid weight next to her, she'd never have made it a step. _One foot in front of the other_. She kept thinking it, and thinking it, until she was saying it, too. "One foot," she gasped, looking back to see their footsteps spread behind them, running along the beach.

"Good girl," Hook told her, and that should not have done much of anything to her desire to keep moving. Yet somehow there was a note of pride, and the step she thought might be her last she kept pushing forward.


	5. Chapter 5

WALKING HAD BEEN AGONY. She had dreamed so long of walking, and it was nothing like she'd imagined. She had hoped that each step would get easier, and instead the pain grew more and more intense. She could not remember any of their hike. Even though her curiosity about the island had been unquenchable when she was trapped in the ocean, the island blurred around her. It wasn't that she did not want to see more of Neverland, the pain and misery of movement kept her from seeing anything but the ground beneath her feet and the back of her eyelids.

Emma was mildly aware that she would not have gotten much of anywhere if it were not for Killian. Even from the start, she'd had to lean on him. By the middle, she weighed on him like an anchor, and even that had not helped much to stave off the pain of every step. By the very end, he carried her, her tears landing on bare skin as she held tight to his shoulders. She told herself that her legs would get stronger, that walking would not always be a burden. She told herself that she did not regret losing her tail, not when she had a chance to be who she was meant to be without it. It was harder to be truly confident of that fact when she hurt so badly.

Her legs ached less by the time they made it to his ship. A painfully long time; swimming around the island, she could get from one side to the other within minutes. Emma wasn't sure how long she'd managed to walk, yet it wasn't half as far as Killian ended up carrying her. She hated that she needed to rely on anyone for so long, yet if she had to rely on anyone, she was glad it was him. Not much of a compliment, she supposed, when he was practically the only human she knew that had ever shown her kindness.

They didn't talk much, as he carried her. He must have been tired. His breath came in short, heavy pants, near the end. She didn't have anything to say, and most of her energy was spent in recovering from the pain of trying to walk. By the time she could see the flutter of sails on the horizon, she felt a little knitted together again, yet she still could not summon herself to speak. At least she watched instead of cowered. Ships were not a welcome sight for most mermaids, after all. Still, danger or no, Emma had always found the sails stark against the line of the sky to be beautiful. It still was, as he carried her over a rocky beach and to a small rowboat hidden under reeds.

He put her down in the boat, and she found herself staring at him as he worked to clean the seaweed off and push the vessel into the water. He was bare, from the waist up, and it was impossible for her to not notice how different his body was from her own. He had some familiar parts, a navel and nipples and the hollows just under the throat, yet some things were much different. His stomach was lean and hard, rippled with muscle. Hers was smooth and soft and rounded. The muscles of his arms were round and prevalent as he worked, and there was a small bob in his throat when he swallowed. She especially liked the dark run of hair near the clasp of his belt, drawing her eyes down. If he noticed her staring, he didn't mention, dragging the boat out into the water and clambering in after, starting the slow work of rowing out to the ship.

It was strange to sit on legs, instead of a tail. Emma felt weighed down by the leather of his jacket, too much weight when she was used to none at all, but Killian would not let her shrug it off. She thought better than to argue. She could not justify the wanton boldness she had used before, when she did not need him for anything but company. Now she worried that if she pushed too hard, he would leave her. For all her proclamations of being able to take care of herself, the reality seemed rather frightening. Her chances would be better if she wasn't alone, and he was all she had. She just needed to get stronger, and not rock the boat too much until then.

"I could help," she'd told him, certain that she was starting to spy weariness in the slow roll of his shoulders, their dingy cutting through the water at a sedate speed. Hook made a noise, a winded gust. Maybe a laugh, without the proper air needed for it.

"Mermaids know to row?" He asked her, staring at her intently. She realized a pace late that they were facing each other in the boat, with little but each other to look at if they faced forward. He'd been watching her since they started, his back toward the ship they were rowing towards. Her legs pressed together, a hollow ache in her stomach that the pressure didn't seem to help.

"No, but I could-" She started the thought, but he did not let her finish it.

"Learn. I know." He closed his eyes and focused on the rhythm of his strokes for a few turns. "That you can, but not tonight. If you want to help me, fetch my rum out of the left front pocket." Emma thought that _left front_ was not enough information, considering how many pockets his coat seemed to have. Still, she knew what the flask looked like, and it only took a couple tries to find it. When she stretched forward to hand it to him, his eyes were not on the flask, and then they were on the water around them. She wasn't sure how much had been in the flask, but by the time he bit off the lid and tossed it to the bottom of the rowboat, it was empty.

She did not speak again, until their little rowboat sidled up to the side of the ship. Emma stared up the massive wood wall before them, awestruck. How would they ever make it up to the deck? She knew there was a small rope ladder on one of the sides, sometimes thrown down when they were working on the ship. Her legs ached just at the thought of trying to climb it, yet she knew she'd have to unless she wanted to remain in the rowboat. Or so she thought; instead, the pirate put his fingers to his mouth and exhaled a sharp whistle.

It took a few minutes, and then there was a round head peering over the rail. Emma squinted to try and make out the face in the dark, but she didn't know any of Killian's men well enough to recognize him. "Throw down the winches," he said, and there was something to his tone that was unique to anything she'd ever heard from him. Strong and a bit harsh, perhaps even a little cold.

"Aye, cap'n, just as well." Emma couldn't see what the man was doing, but she heard the clink of metal and the slither of ropes. "Who's this now, cap'n?" There was something in his voice that Emma didn't like, though she had no idea what.

"Throw down the winches, or I'll be up and throw you in the brig." The man above scowled, yet there was no other questions and two lines were thrown down toward the water, clunking with a splash into the water. Killian wrenched one out and hooked the rope to a metal loop near the front of the rowboat, so Emma did the same, wincing a little at the echoes of pain just from the slightest of movements. There was a glimmer of something in Killian's eyes when he turned back and saw the other side already attached, a warmth that she could just barely spot in the dark, yet it pleased her.

It was odd, the feeling of being hoisted out of the water. Emma wanted something to hold onto, and there was nothing within reach but herself and the bench underneath her. So her hands tightened on the hard wood of her seat, watching with wide eyes as the dingy freaked upwards into the air. She'd never felt anything like it. She suspected that her life was likely to be full of new feelings, now that she was free of the ocean. It took too long for her liking for the dingy to creep up to the rail, but soon she was looking up and over it. She'd seen it from afar, never up close. She marveled silently at the polished decks, the orderly lines and boxes and traps and nets and all manner of things. She yearned for the time when she could ask Killian any question that barreled into her head. For once her tongue was stilled, sealed to the roof of her mouth.

"Here we are, girl, Bill will help you." The man was looking at her oddly, face covered in wiry white whiskers. His hand was out to help her, and Emma hesitated before reaching out to take it. She didn't make it before a sharp rap on the man's wrist made it recoil. Killian's expression was extremely dangerous, the end of his oar in hand. That had to have hurt, a sharp blow with heavy wood. Bill glowered and pulled back, lips pulling back into a sneer. "Was just trying to help the lady, cap'n," he muttered darkly, rubbing at a sore wrist. Killian dragged himself over the side, and Emma found something impressive about him, even though he almost looked a stranger. Shoulders high and back, eyes sharp and stinging. She had his coat and his shirt and yet he looked every inch the captain he was.

"You won't be touching her, and if you see anyone else trying the same and don't stop them, you'll both answer to me." Bill glowered, but nodded his head. There was even a mutter of _yes, cap'n_ before the man scuttered off. There were only a few men left on the deck, one very high in the odd little basket above the sails, a few working on the rail across from them, and even with Bill gone Emma felt no shortage of eyes on her. Killian turned his attention back to her, and she disliked the face of the captain turned on her. It was frightening, though she wouldn't admit it even if pressed. The expression didn't falter as he leaned back over the rail and offered her his hook. "Come on, then. Out you go."

She took it, realizing after a pace that he wanted her to stand on her own. A part of her worried that she couldn't. The rest of her was too prideful to give up without trying. She clutched at the rail with one hand and his hook with the other and dragged herself up, with legs shaking like the tails of jellyfish bobbing through the water. Still, she did it on her own, and she was proud for it. Once she was standing he threaded her arm over his shoulders, his arm around her back. Then it was just standing up and lifting, and her feet were on the polished deck instead of the rough floorboards of the rowboat. Her legs ached in both new and old agonies, yet as he moved forward Emma forced her feet to follow. Something about the way he looked at her demanded she be strong — and she didn't want to admit to anyone, not even him, how weak she really felt.

It couldn't have been more than twenty, maybe thirty, steps until they made it to a door. Once they were through it and it closed behind her Killian drew her up closer. "Are you well? Should I carry you?" His voice was subdued, suddenly; she wasn't sure she'd ever heard him speak so softly. She had no idea where he intended to carry her to, but she shook her head stubbornly. She would finish what she started, pain or no. He didn't rebuke her, helping her the last few heavy steps to an odd table covered with fabric. Her steps wobbled much more than any she had taken above deck, yet if anyone knew the trouble her legs gave her, it was the man beside her. It seemed less necessary to prove to him she was stronger than she looked. The odd table had more than fabric on it, underneath the cloth was more cloth, stuffed and soft. Once she was seated she had to marvel at it, even as the rest of her ached. Killian was wearier than she knew from their trek. As she sat he flopped heavily next to her, his back spread against the soft material and his legs hanging off the side, like hers.

She turned to him to ask him about the fantastic thing he'd introduced her to, yet her eyes and her thoughts were distracted. The shape of his torso blended into a distinct v, and the dark hair traveled darker than she had thought. How far did it go? She wanted to touch it, she wanted to peel back the black leather to see where that trail led her. It made her warm to think about. She tried to push it from her head, reclining awkwardly to match him. It was strange, to feel so heavy, like her front half was pushing her back side into softness. Yet she supposed it wasn't bad. Simply new. From beside her, Killian laughed, and she rolled her head to look at him. His arm was trapped behind her head and balancing her neck, she realized.

"You've no idea what you walked into, do you?" His eyes were on her and she felt as if it wasn't a question he wanted her to answer, yet she was determined to prove him wrong and do it anyway.

"A pirate ship," Emma said, nearly proud. She hadn't had time to ask him about his ship, perhaps it would surprise him she knew the term proper. Surprised or no, he simply laughed again. Not the answer he'd been expecting.

"That's exactly the problem. They'd tear you to pieces if they had half a chance." Emma frowned to bite back the chance she might look afraid. All the men that had watched her had not seemed angry, nor violent. Why would they want to hurt her? "None of them have had a woman in centuries, and you walk aboard without any bloody pants on." Emma wanted to remind him that she could have worn his pants instead of his shirt, but she was wary he'd laugh at her again. Instead, she curved toward him, onto her side. She could see him better that way.

"What does it mean, to have a woman?" No one could really _have_ a person. Each person was their own and no one else's. So what else could it mean? She could feel the heat of his body through the thin fabric of his own shirt. She liked the closeness, she found. Killian didn't seem to, as he was watching her intently again, in that way that thrilled her and scared her all at once. One moment he was a warm and comforting weight at her side, and the next he was gone; standing, walking, moving, to the table near the door. She struggled to sit up again in his absence, but when she did she could see the tight clench of his fist. There were veins in muscle that were corded and tight, just from how hard his grip. He turned around after a pace, expression guarded again.

"Sex. It means sex." She didn't have any idea what that meant, any more than she'd understood _having a woman_ in the first place.

He had to see her next question coming a mile away. Perhaps he'd be surprised by the number of them, though. "And what is sex? Why do they want it so badly? Why do they want me?"

Killian shook his head. His entire body seemed an angry, tense line; he paced the floor methodically and the floorboards underneath him seemed to have a slight path burned into it. How many nights had he paced that line?

"It's not easy to explain to someone who has no concept." Emma opened her mouth to protest, and he lifted a hand to silence her. "It's … Two people, generally, exploring each other. Touching. Kissing. Experiencing each other, body and flesh. They want it badly because it's one of the best sensations there is. And they want it from _you_ because you are beautiful, and you are a woman. You'll not find another woman aboard, Emma. Only you, and it's been that way for centuries. Have you ever wanted something, and yet you couldn't have it? Even a day, or a week." Emma hesitated to think, but yes, it was easy to imagine wanting something she couldn't have. After all she'd wanted to see land for all of her life, and yet no matter how badly she wanted it, it could never be hers. It only made her want it more. "A man can turn into an animal, waiting so long. It's all I can do to keep rank, and now I've brought you here into a den of vipers. Every man aboard wants you, Emma, and Neverland has honed my men into monsters."

Emma had no idea what a den of vipers was, yet she could understand his meaning well enough. He thought she was in danger here, among his men. She felt an uncertain apprehension, she couldn't deny that, yet she would rather be with him than on her own. Or back in the ocean, yearning for land. "Do you think there were no dangers for me in the ocean? You are a man of the sea, are you not? You've seen the creatures that thrive in the deep. They were monsters, too, and I always escaped them. You think this world has danger, but _all_ do, Killian Jones, and I am not asking you to save me from it." Something about him seemed to deflate at her words, something she couldn't explain, yet she hated it. It tasted of unhappiness. Defeat. "No matter the danger, this is what I wanted. Tell me how to protect myself, instead of imagining there is no possible way I could."

The pirate lowered himself into the chair near his desk, body seeming utterly spent. She understood the sensation, considering hers was not so very far. "Try not to be alone with any of them. I'll do what I can to make sure that is an impossibility. If they try to touch you, brush them off and tell them to stop. And if the very worst happens… scream. There's naught anywhere it wouldn't be heard on this ship."

Emma nodded, silence hanging between them instead of her usual litany of questions. For once they all died, swollen in her throat. She elbowed out of his coat, heavily, before curving her arms around herself instead. Her thoughts should have been on the dangers, she knew that. Yet the fear faded away, her thoughts running over what Killian had told her. Kissing. Touching. Knowing each other. She shivered thinking about it, that no-longer foreign warmth spreading through her skin and her thoughts.

"You said that every man wanted me." Her voice surprised even her, as if the words had been plucked from her head and dropped into the room without her actually intending to speak them. Hook looked back at her with sharp blue eyes and Emma felt her chest tighten. She didn't have to finish her question, a part of her felt it would be better if she didn't, and yet the words couldn't be stopped. The cork had been pulled and they were spilling out, no matter how dangerous they might be. "Do you want me?"

She asked the question, and yet she found herself completely needless of an answer. Suddenly she could see it, the sweat marking at his skin and the wildness in his eyes. His breath was shorter too; did his chest vice like hers when he considered them close? She'd never thought of such things before him, and now she couldn't stop. Those things he'd said, knowing his body, exploring and touching and kissing and tasting… She wanted all of it. Perhaps his men were not the only monsters. Had she not been a mermaid for most her life? She had monster in her, too, and he had started to awaken it.

Hook stood abruptly, his chair groaning from where it was bolted to the floor. Her heartbeat startled and for a moment, a blessed moment, she thought he would come closer. All of her thrilled at the idea, even if a part of her was frightened by how much she wanted it. Instead, he moved to the door. He didn't look at her, pausing there with his hand painfully tight on the knob of the door. His knuckles were bright white on the metal.

"Any man with eyes would want you." It wasn't exactly what she'd hoped to hear. Emma wanted the validation, the promise he wanted the way she wanted. Yet there was some hint of that in his answer all the same. It was thrilling and disappointing all at once. "I warned you there were monsters on this ship, Emma. It'd do you well to remember I'm the worst of all of them."

Emma watched his back, wishing he'd turn around, that he'd come back. She felt so cold and separate, suddenly; in the ocean she was always surrounded, her skin always tingling with the presence of something warm. Now she was alone, and the air was not welcoming compared to the embrace of the sea. She didn't know what to make of his promise that he was a monster. If he was, wouldn't she have known it, in all the time they'd talked? He'd protected her, helped her, worried about her. Would a true monster want to protect her from itself?

"Killian…" She tried to collect herself, strength enough to stand. If he wouldn't come to her, she'd simply go to him. Surely he felt better when they were near each other, as she did. All she had to do was reach him...

It was too late. The door swung open, and with it the sharp cold of night rushed in. Emma recoiled back into feathers and fabric, more hurt than she wanted to admit. "Try to get some rest. I'll be back in the morning." She wanted to ask him to stay, her heart clamored with it. She did not want to be trapped in his room, his space, surrounded by his things and his smell, without him. She did not say it, though. She couldn't, not when it was clear that he did not want the same.

The captain disappeared into the dark and the door closed behind him. Emma miserably folded back into the odd soft table, finding it both comfortable and wrong all at once. She had not even gotten the chance to ask him what it was called. A sudden sound startled her, by the door, loud and heavy and internal, _clank._ Emma did not have any idea what it was, yet somehow she knew that she didn't like it.

There was nothing she could do about it now. There was no one to ask what the sound meant, or what the thing she was lying on was called. She gingerly reached for the fabric to cover herself, just to help her feel warmer. She thought numbly that she would never sleep, misery and loneliness too strong to shut her eyes. Still, the shake and roll and rock of the ocean, moving the ship carelessly, was familiar. It lulled her slowly, but surely, and eventually she fell away into exhaustion.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN:** I left you guys hanging for quite a while on this one, so hopefully there's still someone around to read this! After five chapters of set up, this is definitely going to start veering to the nsfw category. The idea was always to write sexual exploration from someone with very little concept of it, so if that's not what you're interested in, it might not be the fic for you anymore! I do have some plot ideas that I will get to sooner or later, but for now the focus is a lot of smooching. And eventually more than smooching…

* * *

Compared to her first day as a human, the weeks after were far better. At least that was a small reassurance. Each and every day was a flood of things she didn't understand, lots of questions as she always seemed to have another up her sleeve. The men of the ship didn't seem so threatening as Killian had warned her about. All of them seemed perfectly happy to explain things to her if she asked them about her curiosities. Some were shy, some talked strangely, some didn't provide as fulfilling answers as Emma might have liked. All of them would answer her, though; even if they all scattered without fail if the Captain came to join them. She knew full well why they scurried away, too. Hook was warmer to his men when they were anywhere but near her. She supposed it was attempts to protect her, but protect her from what? They were not so monstrous as he had implied. Or perhaps she had a bad sense of monstrosity.

Walking had gotten easier, also, with time. She was intimidated by the uneven cut of rock and sand and jungle of the island, when she occasionally gazed over the rail to wonder over what the island was like. She found herself grateful for the fairly even planes of the deck. Not even the rock under her feet disturbed her, though surely that couldn't have been much of a surprise. She'd lived long enough as a mermaid that the movement of the ocean couldn't disturb her, even if it tried. She was able to walk about the deck in careful bursts, and she spent more time on her feet than her rear, though on occasion she did have to lean against something for support. The pain had mostly faded, too, replaced with a lessening weakness. She was stronger every day yet she could feel when she was pushing herself a little too far — and often pushed past it anyway.

Every night was the same. As sunset started to color the sky, she knew her freedom was coming to an end. "The shadow," Killian had explained, when she asked why she had to be locked away when the moon was above them. "It fears light and reigns in the dark. The last thing we need is for it to see you." She had seen the shadow, simpering through the night sky, but only as a mermaid. Killian was determined to let it believe she'd swam away to a new world. If it were to learn she was aboard, Pan would learn she was aboard shortly after. Hook wouldn't say what he'd do if he found her, though she thought what scared him most was that he didn't actually know the answer to that particular question. She yearned to see the stars, the face of the moon reflected in the water, but she didn't have it in her to refuse him. She was frightened of the boy king of Neverland, too.

Still, her nights were not always despondent. She returned to the cabin she was getting too familiar with, and often Killian would join her. It had a similar air to their nights together on the beach. They'd share food or drink and he'd answer any question she leveled his way. She always had more for him, no matter how many she'd asked during the day. Sometimes she asked the same ones over, because the answer hadn't satisfied her; sometimes she asked them over because she wanted to know what he thought. If his opinion was the same as the man she'd asked on his deck. She tried to level anything she heard, make sense of things her own way instead of blindly believing anything she heard. Yet she was aware of a bias for any answer Killian gave her.

His voice was the only one that lingered in her thoughts, when she waited for sleep to find her. _Touching, kissing. Experiencing each other. Body and flesh._ It rang in her ears as she tried to touch herself, clumsy and fumbling over legs and arms and her stomach and sometimes other places, imagining it is was his roughened touch instead of her own. Would he have touched her that way? It didn't work as well as she'd have liked. It rarely made her feel warm in the way his simple words could. If his voice could make her feel this way, she could only imagine what his touch might do. The few samples she'd had of closeness just left her keening for more, and every day she felt as if he were getting closer to wanting her just as badly.

At the start he'd kept by the desk, or the chair, or even the door. Like a bird primed to take flight at the soonest sign of threat. It was ironic that he'd warned her of how dangerous he was and then proceeded to take _her_ at a wide berth, as if she were the one to be concerned about. His distance didn't last, though; soon he would join her in the bed, and sometimes they'd lie together close enough that she could feel the heat of his body against her skin. As always she had to be the one to touch him, yet he didn't shy away. Those were so fleeting and wonderful and not sustainable all at once. She wanted more, and it frustrated her to no end to not know what more she actually wanted.

As their time together grew longer and their proximity tighter, her questions got bolder. Though her inexperience did color what she knew how to ask. She would ask him his favorite place to be touched, what pleased him more, kisses or fingers. That one had just made him laugh, and no matter how she pestered him he wouldn't tell her why. Once she'd asked him if he had ever been kissed before, and he'd only looked at her for a very long time and excused himself for the night. That was the worst of it, no matter how well she behaved or how delicate her questions, there always came a time where he would leave her. She didn't understand why, even if his bed was small there was room for both of them. She hated that she could envision sleeping at his side far better than she could imagine an arousing touch. She wanted that nearly as much, she found. He looked weary, she'd heard from his men he slept in the crew quarters if he ever slept at all. "Stay with me," she'd bid him in a fevered whisper, one night. The look on his face had nearly been pained as he left her behind.

And left behind she always was. She never felt more alone than she did in those horrible minutes between the door closing and sleep finding her. The bed felt cold, her body felt vacant. She'd reel through all the things she'd learned and compare it to the list of things she had yet to, and those scales were never particularly close to even. She felt as alone as she had every night and day in the ocean, aimless and unwanted. The shadow found her at night after all, infecting her thoughts and her dreams. Showing her crystal glass horses and the face of a woman with wet stains of salt running down her fair cheeks.

Then she would wake. Each day led to another and started anew. She would vow today she'd be better, and stronger, learn more, walk farther, do more. She told herself that would chase away the empty ache, the miserable feelings. Somehow it never did. It was the one question she could never manage to ask him, if he felt that way as he waited alone at night for sleep to reach him. If he felt that unhappiness, that hopelessness, that wonder if he had a place in the world. She wasn't sure she wanted him to know she ever felt that way. She refused to let him have any indication that he was right, and that losing her tail wasn't the best thing that ever happened to her. She refused to let that thought be spoken, as if it might make it real. No, no matter the dark moments, she was still glad for the fact she had found her way into the human world.

This night was like every other, and drawing too soon to a close. She watched the pirate slung across her bed _his_ bed, really, she just had a horrible time remembering without his coat, without the kohl smudged under his eyes, he looked so different. Younger, perhaps, though it wasn't without a price. He looked tired. He looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with needing to sleep. He looked weary in a way that made her heart ache. She wanted to soothe those miseries away, as if a touch of her hand could wipe them clean, like skimming algae off the surface of water. She wasn't frightened by her desire for his touch, yet the way he inspired emotions she never felt before… that scared her a great deal.

She'd learned one of the best ways to get him to stay longer was to ask him things about the ship. He always had such delight in talking about the Jolly Roger, once he'd almost stayed until dawn speaking of how it'd been made. She didn't always understand it, yet she liked to hear him talk about it, anyway. He was explaining the difference between ships tonight, and to confess truly, she hadn't been paying as much attention to his explanation as she ought. He was so close, and she found herself focused on the way his mouth moved instead. Why was it that every part of him intrigued her so? She propped up on her elbow, hand supporting her head and a heavy pile of blonde hair, listening to him talk but really admiring the way his mouth twisted over every syllable and tongue pressed against the back of his teeth.

When he finally finished the answer, the silence didn't last. She knew as it slipped off her tongue that it was the sort of question he always evaded, yet she couldn't help it. "Do you want to kiss me?" Perhaps now wasn't the time for questions, a statement would have done just as well. She wanted to kiss him, rather badly. His lips had touched hers to try and make her breathe again, yet she could barely remember it. That wasn't a kiss, and she wanted a proper one. She thought too much about kisses, really, it was his fault for even telling her what they were. He'd refused to describe them yet even having a name was enough for her to think about them a little too much. Frankly she might have thought about them too much even if she had no idea what they were called.

His expression went from open and warm to confused to that blank mask she so despised. "Emma, honestly, why do you—"

"Why do you think?" She answered sharply, frustrated beyond relief. He treated her as if she were made of glass, incapable of realizing what she really wanted. Well, that was truly not so. She'd felt these things in passing without really understanding them since the very first moment they'd met. She felt them now, even surrounded by other possibilities. She didn't want to kiss Smee, nor Riggs, and Riggs was plainly the handsomest of all the men. Besides the captain, of course. Killian was by and far the most striking of all of them, yet it wasn't even his face that made her want him so badly. It was far more than that, it was his voice and the way he'd helped her and the way he treated her, at least, when he wasn't trying to protect her from himself. Himself, or _herself_ , but all the same Emma was not interested in being protected. "I'd like to kiss you. I think about it often. Do you think about kissing me?"

She shifted to be closer to him, wanting to look him in the eye as he answered. He was a good liar, she'd give him that, yet she could see it in his eyes when he told her an untruth. It was the kind of close that would make him move, if he noticed it. At least most nights. Tonight he looked her up and down and stared back at her, expression a mix of annoyed and frustrated. She didn't see what right he had to frustration when _he_ was being the frustrating one.

"Of course I do." The admission sent an inordinate thrill through her, a smile tipping at her features, though the confession did make her wonder.

"Then why don't you?" Surely he was aware she wanted him to. All the questions about kissing, and how he liked it, and what it felt like. He was aware, and avoided the subject whenever he could, sometimes to the point that he'd leave her stranded if she pushed too hard. So why then, would he ignore when he wanted it just as badly as she did? Or, well, there was a great chance that nobody could want it as badly as she did. Still, wanting it was enough for her to be offended by the fact he hadn't.

"Because you don't know what you're asking." Killian pushed up on his elbows, clearly trying to get up and walk away. Something she wouldn't tolerate at the moment, and Emma pushed him back down with a press of her palm. He looked both baffled and amused when he looked back at her, apparently he had no time to make strides to hide it.

"I do. It's when your lips touch mine." That was a kiss, he'd even told her as much. Even the thought of it made her feel warm inside.

"Emma, that's not what you're bloody well asking, and we both know it." She blinked at that, rather bemused. He was … well, he was more accurate than she wanted him to be. She wanted him to kiss her, yes, but she wanted more than that, too. She wanted to feel his hand on her skin. She wanted to know what it felt like on all of her. She wanted to touch him too, just as badly. She wanted to _know him_ , something she hadn't even known was possible until he'd told her. Still, surely a little kiss to start couldn't hurt? She opened her mouth to protest, but he didn't give her the room. "You are asking for things you're not ready for. Things you need more time and distance to know if you even really want. It's something you can only give once, and I doubt you'll be happy if you look back and remember you gave it to me."

Her face colored with confusion as she considered his words. He made it sound as if she could only give her body to one person. Even if that was the case, why was he so sure she'd regret giving herself to him? She liked him, she trusted him, she wanted _him_. Why did it have to be more complicated than that? The confusion was quickly discouraged by the frustration of a similar situation, happening all over again. She didn't think much about her movements, just realized her determination to keep him from getting up and abandoning her as he sat up again.

The only thing she had to stop him was herself, and as usual she did not hesitate to use what she had. Slinging one leg over his lap, she was able to land in it before he could sit up and stand. She didn't hold him close, however, instead she shoved at his shoulder again, anger sparking.

"You say you honor my right to choose, and then ignore what I want in the very same breath." Hook looked incredibly surprised by her boldness, yet there was more to it, hidden in the blue. Something she didn't have a word for, yet she knew the feeling, because she felt it too. From being close to him, from wanting more than just being close. "If I'm not ready, I will tell you so. I know I'm ready for you to kiss me. I think about it so often, what it will be like when—"

Her sentence died between them, as arms circled around her and held her blessedly tight. Though his arms around her was absolutely the last thing on her mind, when his mouth was on hers, too.

She'd thought so much about kissing him, yet she realized as it happened that it was nothing like she could ever have imagined. It was so much more, somehow. At first she was too surprised by it to do much at all, a soft _oh_ escaping her as she drowned in the feeling. The kiss was hard and sudden, almost as if he wanted her to dislike it just to shake her of the desire; or perhaps the frustration she'd been feeling really was in him, too, and he had finally snapped, just as she had.

It was short, just warmth and the scrape of stubble on her skin, and then he pulled back. Breath short and burning across the plane of her throat. Emma watched him with vibrant green eyes, captured the way the dark of his eyes was widening and widening, yet the sharp blue still lingered. She could see how much he wanted to kiss her again, just by the look in his eyes. She felt the same, the urge to press their lips together again was unbelievable; unbelievable, and important to resist. There was so much more to the exercise that she wanted to understand. She lifted a hand to the scruffy plane of his cheek, the pad of her thumb running the line of his beard and marvelling how it felt underneath her touch. Her lips were still hot from when his mouth had been against them, and yet not even that rushed her. She didn't want to rush, she wanted to savor.

He didn't move, he only watched her as she touched him and explored his face with her fingertips, his expression a mire of so many things she hardly could have pegged one even if she'd tried. The one she wanted to see, the echo of what she felt, was the only expression she cared about.

When she kissed him again it was soft. Nearly tentative. As if he'd only allot her the one, and she wasn't sure he'd let her get away with another. An insecurity lingered for the first few seconds, a fleeting press of her lips on his, and honestly there was nothing really remarkable about it except for the thrill it sent through her to be kissing him. She'd thought of it often enough for the idea to be inflated, it could have easily been far less wonderful in execution than it was in practice. Somehow, it wasn't, there was something delightfully thrilling about the act she'd thought about and imagined so long. That she could finally experience things she'd only dreamed about before. The reality of his lips against hers brought details she couldn't have guessed at, the taste of his skin and the warmth of his body against hers, the way the arms around her seemed to snake a little tighter as she kissed him again, twice, three times, and then a fourth.

The fourth twisted from presses of lips to sample the feeling, to something a little more. She shifted her weight towards him to increase the pressure between his lips and hers, trying to relive the ferocity of the kiss he'd given her. Her fingertips stroked at the side of his throat, and he exhaled a hopelessly quiet noise as he finally stopped holding back, leaning into the careful test of her kiss. If kissing him had been wonderful, there was something so much more dynamic about it when he was kissing her back.

It wasn't a simple touch, her lips on his and back again. It was like a conversation, without any words. A back and forth, as she ventured forward and he responded. The pressure was ginger and yet steadily increasing. Emma felt a warmth starting to glow inside of her, like the flame of a candle widening and brightening as it reached its end. Five kisses turned to many, enough that her lips started to burn just from the new experience she'd never put them through before. The rough tumble of his beard burned at her skin, and while the prickle could have been uncomfortable somehow it just made her more delighted. She liked that reminder against her cheek, the lack of delicacy in comparison. It was proof that he was real, and not a rather vivid picture painted by her imagination.

Emma was certain she could kiss him forever. Even if it caused a liveliness inside of her that she could barely understand. She wasn't one to squirm or shake, and yet she almost couldn't stop herself as the feeling inside of her built. She wiggled and pressed and shifted, and it was only one accidental movement that seemed to abate the feeling any. Their hips aligned just so, and she could feel a blessed spark of something from the friction. It wasn't fated to last, though, a low note of pleasure and something else falling from Killian's lips. Emma realized a pace late a little sigh had escaped her, too, before her pirate throne was suddenly moving, and she was pressed back into bedding instead.

She didn't find any good reason that she couldn't kiss him on her back, so she kissed him at least a few seconds more before he pulled back to lean on his elbow. She held a breath for a moment before she realized there was more amusement painted across his face than annoyance. "Just a kiss, she says," the pirate murmured, and there was a wonderful deepened note to his tone. Emma felt her smile peak above her canines just at the sound of it, palms curving at his jaw to kiss him again, even if it meant pressing up against him with a curve of her spine. He mumbled a laugh and there was something she genuinely adored about the rumble of his amusement against her lips, yet even Emma could tell he wasn't kissing back any longer.

"What's wrong," she whispered, falling back into the blankets. She must have been wearing her disappointment; Killian bowed back down to kiss her, just one of those presses she'd tried earlier, and yet she liked even that.

"There's only so many kisses a man can take." It took a moment to sink in, and there was a flashing moment where she felt horribly for him. She could kiss him forever, and he could only kiss her for ten minutes? It seemed terribly unfair. He must have read the sympathy on her face because he added a second later, "We react differently to kisses, darling. We aren't quite as good at stopping when we keep at it too long."

Well. That was different then. Sympathy gone, she nosed up at his chin, catching his jaw with a little kiss because he seemed intent on keeping his mouth out of her reach. "Well then we won't stop," Emma decided, and it seemed like a very fair compromise to her, but while Killian laughed he didn't kiss her again, slowly sitting up and pulling away from her. She shouldn't have been so disappointed, she had asked for a kiss and he'd given her more than she could even count, and yet she felt deprived the second he pulled away. She sat up to follow him, word of protest growing and dying the second she saw a strange shape pressed at the side of his slacks. Her eyes widened despite herself, and while she considered reaching out to touch, she thought better of it.

"When someone wants to stop, they get to say so." Emma supposed that was fair, even though she might have liked to keep kissing. If he wanted to stop, then they would. Though the way he ran his hand along her jaw into her hair, dropping to kiss her one more time, was a bit of a mixed message. Her hands fell to his chest, but he moved back a second later. "Remember that. If you ever want to stop, then just say so." His eyes seemed to burn into her, trying to find something even though Emma had no idea what he could be looking for. The intensity made her uncertain, as if she should want to stop, even though no part of her could see why.

"I'll remember," she nodded, hands dropping limply to her lap without him to hold onto. "Does that mean we'll kiss again?" If she wasn't supposed to ask, he shouldn't have given her the inclination that she was allowed to refuse him if she wanted to stop kissing.

"Not tonight," he said, turning away from her and moving toward the door. "There's things at play here you don't understand, Emma, and until you do… We can only go so far." She wound her arms around her legs as she watched him, wishing he'd have stayed with her, even if they couldn't kiss anymore. Why did she feel so much more alone now? Perhaps because the closeness had felt so complete, and now she realized how opposite of alone she could be. It only amplified the feeling when it found her. "If you want to learn, then I'll do what I can to explain."

"Thank you," she murmured, finally. She could not quite understand why he was so uncomfortable about the questions and the pressing, yet she was glad for the promise that he'd try to teach her. She wanted to know about how to be close, and she wanted to be close to _him._ If he wanted it as badly as she did, why couldn't they find a way together? The air outside the cabin seemed frigid as he opened the door, and her grip around her legs got a little tighter.

"Good night, Emma." He finally glanced back at her to bid her goodnight, and even in the dark she could see a want there. She told herself that she should ask about why he refused what he wanted when they spoke next. Tonight, though, it was already too late.

"Good night, Killian," she agreed, managing a smile that veered a little sad as he slipped out the door and closed it behind him. The lock sealing the door in was familiar now; she still didn't like it, but Killian insisted that nobody be able to get in when she was sleeping. Emma couldn't imagine who would try, yet knowing she could get out if she wanted to was enough that she didn't fight it. As long as she wasn't trapped, she wouldn't argue. The room seemed bigger and colder and emptier, now that she was in it alone. Emma rolled reluctantly back onto her back, pulling out of her little ball to let her legs stretch down the mattress.

There was a lingering warmth to her, still, from even a handful of kisses. Emma wondered if he felt it, too, something both satisfying and yet impatient for more, even if she wasn't sure what. The feeling seemed to escalate in a frustrating way, like a pound for attention and a demand for satisfaction, and Emma had no way to placate it. Simply lay back and wait for it to fade, or for sleep to take her. Whichever came first.

In the end, it was sleep. It was longer to catch up to her than usual, yet it embraced her without the quiet roar of unhappiness and uncertainty, for once. Instead her thoughts lingered on warm kisses and arms curled around her, and that delivered her quite content to her dreams.


End file.
